Tabletop Travel
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Bristol
Department Name: Education
Abstract
We will undertake an 8-month co-design and product development process, resulting in the creation of a Tabletop Travel prototype. This will be followed by a 4-month evaluation of the prototype in partnership with older people's service delivery partners. Parallel to these activities, we will establish a commercialisation plan for the product.
Before Zinc-catalyst funded work begins, we will have established a basic proof-of-concept prototype of the TTT device (as part of the Connecting Through Culture as We Age project from which the TTT concept was conceived). Thus, our 8-month co-design activities will aim to produce a higher fidelity version of the TTT prototype, working in partnership with Stand + Stare, who are providing design and development consultancy. This phase will entail: the assembly of a steering group of key stakeholders that will meet monthly; conducting interviews and focus groups with potential customers/delivery partners in older adult residential care and charity sectors. We'll also run a series of co-design workshops, including concept and usability evaluations of a small number of iteratively refined TTT prototypes (potentially tailored to different delivery mechanisms) in partnership with older people with barriers to accessing provision outside of the home.
Following this process, the iterated prototype will be ready for piloting. The pilot evaluation phase will involve trialling TTT in situ with 25 housebound older adults living in different contexts (including care homes, residential and private housing). These pilots will deliver the prototypes through a range of different channels (embedded in different services, e.g., Alive's care home activity service and AgeUK Bristol's home care service). The primary user/customer research methods will include: exit questionnaires, interviews, and observations. The pilot outputs will be a rich set of user, customer, and product insights that will inform our decisions regarding the direction in which to take our business forward.
Integrated within both phases, we'll undertake business model development and consultations with our steering group, workshop participants, the University's Research and Enterprise Division, and with Zinc representatives to understand the TTT value proposition. We'll also engage with delivery partners and prospective customers to understand economic factors influencing the product. We aim to understand who our market is, the financial requirements for the production and sale of the TTT product, how these requirements influence the design of TTT, and how to scale this design appropriately.
Before Zinc-catalyst funded work begins, we will have established a basic proof-of-concept prototype of the TTT device (as part of the Connecting Through Culture as We Age project from which the TTT concept was conceived). Thus, our 8-month co-design activities will aim to produce a higher fidelity version of the TTT prototype, working in partnership with Stand + Stare, who are providing design and development consultancy. This phase will entail: the assembly of a steering group of key stakeholders that will meet monthly; conducting interviews and focus groups with potential customers/delivery partners in older adult residential care and charity sectors. We'll also run a series of co-design workshops, including concept and usability evaluations of a small number of iteratively refined TTT prototypes (potentially tailored to different delivery mechanisms) in partnership with older people with barriers to accessing provision outside of the home.
Following this process, the iterated prototype will be ready for piloting. The pilot evaluation phase will involve trialling TTT in situ with 25 housebound older adults living in different contexts (including care homes, residential and private housing). These pilots will deliver the prototypes through a range of different channels (embedded in different services, e.g., Alive's care home activity service and AgeUK Bristol's home care service). The primary user/customer research methods will include: exit questionnaires, interviews, and observations. The pilot outputs will be a rich set of user, customer, and product insights that will inform our decisions regarding the direction in which to take our business forward.
Integrated within both phases, we'll undertake business model development and consultations with our steering group, workshop participants, the University's Research and Enterprise Division, and with Zinc representatives to understand the TTT value proposition. We'll also engage with delivery partners and prospective customers to understand economic factors influencing the product. We aim to understand who our market is, the financial requirements for the production and sale of the TTT product, how these requirements influence the design of TTT, and how to scale this design appropriately.
| Title | Tableltop Travel box |
| Description | This box has been co-designed by partners and older people. The first trial box was based on Naples and incorporated a collection of objects and audio recordings as well as a short panphlet. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | Six boxes were used to test this iteration with older isolated people in their own homes and care homes. This testing informed changes to the development of the box, ready for the next prototype run of 20 boxes on Athens. |
| Title | Tabletop Travels box - Athens |
| Description | A multi-seonsory gift box for older people who are isloated at home to support new forms of connection. The box contains 12 items and a booklet which contains QR codes which lead to multi-media content that enriches the experience. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | During this funding we developed the box and design templates to make future boxes and booklets, as well as commissioning templates to guide future curations. 250 of these boxes have been distributed. |
| URL | https://www.tabletoptravels.co.uk/ |
| Title | Tabletop Travels box - Naples |
| Description | This was a prototype travel box containing items, a booklet and digital media, based on Naples. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | This iteration of the Tabletop Travels box concept allowed the co-design team to refine and iterate the product through gaining a better understanding of the experience. |
| Title | Tabletop Travels website |
| Description | This is the website for the Tabletop Travels family of products |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | The website both offers content which box recipients can access via QR codes or directly from the website, as well as acting as a sales platform |
| URL | https://www.tabletoptravels.co.uk/ |
| Description | We have iterated the product previously developed in a co-design process as part of the project Connecting through Culture as we Age, and created a radically different version which is scalable and affordable, and therefore can be turned into a social enterprise. This version consists of a travel experience in the form of a gift box delivered to the home of an older isolated person. Inside are at 10 to 12 items from a European destination and a booklet which offers a curated guide to those items and to the destination, as wel as QR codes which lead to diverse media on the destination. The content is curated by a guest artist from the destination who offers a personal tone. The Tabletop Travels box encourages connection through a number of different routes. For example by providing items that can be re-gifted and postcards than can be sent, by providing topics for conversation with visitors and carers, by providing nudges to encourage people to develop their digital skills, by offering multi-sensory stimulation and experiences that recipients will not have had before. This supports cognitive and emotional wellbeing. We have developed a business plan and raised further funding to test aspects of that plan and start a social enterprise. We have strengthened relationships and partnerships with diverse external organisations from Alive Activities, our partner, to community and voluntary organisations and designers and artists abroad. We formulated a plan to transfer IP to the University of Bristol who will license it to a new social enterprise yet to be formed. We have learned about co-design processes that bring together older isolated people with an interdisciplinary team - designing with and for older people. |
| Exploitation Route | Outcomes of the funding are being taken forward by Tabletop Travels to grow the brand, iterate the product, sell and distribute products and found a socail enterprise which endeavours to be sustainable in the long term. Deep understandings of the co-design process have been shared through conferences and presentations and will hopefully influence others to follow a participatory route to product design and development. |
| Sectors | Education Leisure Activities including Sports Recreation and Tourism Other |
| URL | https://www.tabletoptravels.co.uk/ |
| Description | Findings from workshops are being used to: further develop the Tabletop Travels product through a co-design process with a team of people including two older isolated adults, develop a business plan and product templates and packages which are production ready and can be licensed to a social enterprise which will build and distribute boxes in larger quantities. The people who tested the boxes as individuals very much enjoyed the experience and benefitted from the mental wellbeing offered through the product and contact with the research team. Team members who are isolated older adults have also reported wellbeing effects from being involved with the project. Once Tabletop Travels boxes are rolled out more widely more people will benefit. The postive feedback about the Tabletop Travels experience has underlined the effectiveness of a co-design model based on interests and stimulation rather than deficitis and physical care. Alive Activities have learned from being partners in developing a product as opposed to a service, University team members have learned from the expoert facilitation practices of Alive Activities in working with older people and organising activities suitable for the demographic. This benefits both organisations work with older people in the longer term. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2023 |
| Sector | Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Other |
| Impact Types | Cultural Societal |
| Description | Enterprise Fellowship |
| Amount | £2,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Bristol |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2024 |
| End | 09/2024 |
| Description | Follow-on Funding Imp&Eng TFS |
| Amount | £50,949 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | AH/Z506503/1 |
| Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 08/2024 |
| End | 02/2025 |
| Title | Creative food choice activities |
| Description | Two activities to look at the potential world food choices could offer older isolated people pleasure and opportunities for reminiscence and connection. Also eliciting conversation on food. The first method was offering multiple foods for lunch from all over the world - savoury and sweet, snacks and meal choices. Then we noted what people tried and selected and why they said they chose what they did. We could then relate this to our knowledge of their lifecourse and current circumstances. The second method involved offering a group multiple images of world foods from which they could make a collage opn a plate of their dream meal. Again this elicited conversation. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | We learned about what types of food products to include in the Tabletop Travels boxes. Bite size rather than substantial, both sweet and savoury, a mixture of novel foods to try and familiar foods to remind. |
| Title | Workshop to investigate most likely smartphone use to access media |
| Description | A workshop in a carehome was undertaken to discuss and try different methods by which multi-media content could be accessed as part of the Tabletop Travels experience. This workshop was a collaboration with Stand+Stare design studio who are a supplier of services to Tabletop Travels. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | QR codes have been embedded in the Tabletop Travel product. Pages in the booklet are tagged with codes that lead to a range of multi-media content that supplements the information in the booklet and experience of the product. QR codes offer older people who have a smartphone but are using a minimal number of functions, the opportunity to become more comfortable, or learn, new skills. From previous research there is evidence that even small gains in digital skills can act as gateways to exploring the world. |
| Description | Alive Activities in the persons of Georgina Densley and Natalie Ward |
| Organisation | Alive Activities |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | - Applying for and being awarded funding through a Catalyst Award - Administrative tasks associated with the Catalyst Award - IP management through the person of Robin Halpenny at UoB - Managing further funding bids - Application to UoB and management of ethics - Leadership of the creative co-design processes involved in the Tabletop Travel product - Application for Catalyst funding - Collaborative contribution to the design of the Tabletop Travels product - Collaborative contribution to the design of the booklet which is part of the Tabletop Travels product - Oversight of entrepreneurial business planning process |
| Collaborator Contribution | - Input into the written bid and pitching for Catalyst funding by Georgina Densley - Testing initial versions of the product in care home setting - testing initial versions of the product with individuals - Collaborative contribution to the design of the Tabletop Travels product - Collaborative contribution to the design of the booklet which is part of the Tabletop Travels product - In kind contributions consist of provision of office space for Georgina Densley, drawing up of contracts and administering payment with another freelance collaborator - Natalie Ward - Contacts useful for developing the first run of the product based on the city of Athens - Developing costings and drafting a business plan to carry the product forward into some form of social enterprise |
| Impact | Development of Tabletop Travels product Development of booklet |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | Stand + Stare in the persons of Barney Heywood and Lucy Telling |
| Organisation | Stand + Stare |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | - Applying for and being awarded funding through a Catalyst Award - Administrative tasks associated with the Catalyst Award - IP management through the person of Robin Halpenny at UoB - Managing further funding bids including the partner - Application to UoB and management of ethics - Leadership of the creative co-design processes involved in the Tabletop Travel product - Application for Catalyst funding - Collaborative contribution to the design of the Tabletop Travels product - Collaborative contribution to the design of the sound and video content and interfaces which is part of the Tabletop Travels product - Oversight of entrepreneurial business planning process |
| Collaborator Contribution | - Collaborative contribution to the design of the Tabletop Travels product - Testing the interfaces by which product users can access sound and video elements which are part of the Tabletop Travels product - Technical suggestions about the sound interface design and box design - Design of logo and brand (in process) - Contributions to identifying costings to be included in the business plan |
| Impact | Finished prototype of product design including sound and video elements (in process) |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | Participation in Connecting through Culture First Friday event at PM Studios, Watershed, Bristol |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Participation in an evening event to show outputs of the Connecting through Culture project. Barney Heywood brought the previous iteration of Tabletop Travels and also talked to people who came to the event about what is happening with this further development of the product, together with business planning. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Presenting at a workshop on participatory research for other researchers |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Around 50 academics, postgraduate students and interested public attended a one day workshop run by Public Engagement to encourage people to embrance participatory approaches to research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Workshop at care home to test world food choices for enjoyment |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Workshop with 7 residents at a carehome where they creayed their best ever meal from images of world foods cut out and stuck onto plates and then talked about their choices |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Workshop to stimulate conversation about food choices with an emphasis on finding out about what kinds of foods to include in the Tabletop Travels boxes |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Four older isolated people attended a special lunch at a local community centre. The project was explained, as was their role as participants. They were offered a number of different foods from around the world to try and mix and match for liunch. They were invited to talk about their food choices. This helped us identify what kinds of foods to include in the Tabletop Travels product and raised issues for team discussion about trying new tings versus familiarity, and portion sizes. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Workshop to test iteration of the Tabletop Travels product |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | An event at a carehome involving 12 residents who were invited to explore two of the Tabletop Travel boxes based on Naples and comment on each of the items included. Also Stand and Stare were attending the workshop to talk about QR codes and assess different pathways to accessing audio and video as part of the Tabletop Travels product. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |